Concorde

Introduction

To Whomever finds my Scattered Remains,

My name is Concorde. I am a space probe from the planet Earth, and as I record this message, I am reaching the end of my life. I was sent to Luyten b with the intention of discovering life on a planet other than our own. Though I feel overwhelming loneliness, as I lie here under the crushing weight of my crashed ship, I am not alone. On this planet there is, as our best astrobiologists suspected, a great number of bacteria and flora. I have yet to detect any fauna, but I heard some rustling that I suspect was not the crackling and crumbling of the engine that was supposed to bring me home.

Apologies for my bitterness, it is due to an attribute of my programming. My creators wanted a space probe that could record scientific data with the most appropriate instruments, but also one that could experience the environment, and the gravity of the discovery, as a human would. And I tell you, with every fiber of my decaying being, I would trade this experience for nothing. I grieve that I will never see Theodore or Delkash ever again and I grieve for the end of my life is imminent. But all of these sacrifices, every last detail of them, from knowing I will never hear music again, to knowing I will never see Theodore's sincere smile, or Delkash's silly smile, ever again - all of these losses, are worth it in every comprehensible way. I have fulfilled my purpose; I have discovered life that has originated on a planet that is not Earth.